After the naked, delirious and badly wounded Rosa Phillips turns up on his doorstep following her escape from the Palomas Clinic, Dr Milton Arcos (Jesus Franco) becomes concerned that the Clinic is abusing its patients. Powerless to prevent the authorities returning Rosa to the clinic – where he later hears that she has died from her infected wounds – Arcos approaches a human rights organisation with his concerns. Unfortunately their investigation uncovers nothing concrete, the claims of the patients easily being refuted as the ravings of madwomen.
Returning to his car, Arcos is accosted by Rosa's sister Amy (Tania Busselier). She wants to go undercover in the clinic for a month to gather evidence. Arcos agrees to help, and they concoct a false identity and background.
As Abelina Garcia, a schoolteacher who abused her young charges, Rosa is taken into the clinic. She is stripped, hosed down and given a shirt with the number 41 on it. This is her new identity, and if she continues to use her old name she will be punished by having the number branded onto her breast…
Soon, however, the resident queen bee, Juana (Lina Romay) reports her suspicions to the sadistic governor (Dyanne Thorne). And, with Arcos falling victim to the governor's men, there is now no one who knows Amy's real identity or who can save her from a succession of tortures including electric shocks, acid to the genitals and much, much more…
Remember when Heat came out and there was all the hype about De Niro and Pacino together at last? And how the film couldn't live up to expectation? This is what comes to mind when watching Ilsa the Wicked Warden for the first time. For here we have Jesus Franco, Europe's premier maker of Women in Prison films – from 1969's 99 Women to 1972's Lovers of Devil's Ilsand through 1975's Barb Wire Dolls – directing Dyanne Thorne, the American star of 1973's Ilsa, She Wolf of the SS and 1974's Ilsa Harem Keeper of the Oil Sheiks . The film you imagine (or fantasize about, if you prefer) is always going to be better than one you actually get…
Nonetheless, Ilsa/Greta/Wanda is still a pretty good example of its type.
If you want sadism, sleaze and depravity, you got them, with highlights including Ilsa using Juana as a human pincushion; Ilsa suffocating a victim with a (transparent) plastic bag and – best/worst of all – Juana compelling Abelina to lick her "culo" right after she's been to the toilet…
But, being Franco, there has to be something more. What we get, besides the political message – fascism and oppression are bad, duh – is a subplot that sees the clinic being used to shoot porno and snuff films and, as such, maybe – just maybe – an implicit criticism of himself for presenting material like Ilsa to his audience and of his audience themselves for demanding it.
Franco's direction is surprisingly restrained for the most part, uncharacterically reliant upon lighting and production design to create the mood. The trademark style still comes through in the odd scene – such as the red filtered, out of focus tryst between Ilsa and her lover from the ministry (Howard Maurer – Thorne's husband), with a glass purposefully placed to obscure the fumblings and gropings.
Thorne's performance is, in its limited way, good. Then again, she had had considerable practice in playing the sadistic warden by the time of the film. All that's really required is to roll her eyes, chew the scenery and expose her flesh…
Ilsa the Wicked Warden is now available on two different DVDs, a Region 1 release from Anchor Bay, who have released the other 'official' Ilsa films, and a Region 0 release as part of VIP's ongoing Jesus Franco collection.
With image quality on both versions far better than the film really warrants, the key differences are in the sound options and extras.
The Anchor Bay disc only has the English dub, whereas the VIP disc also has French, German and Italian language options.
Extras wise the centrepiece on the Anchor Bay disc is a feature length commentary with Thorne and Maurer and Martin Lewis, who nearly ruins it with his inane comments and complete ignorance of Franco. Thorne and Maurer compensate somewhat, with some fascinating background on the film's production, such as how Thorne's hair was not allowed to be blonde because that would make the character too close to the original Ilsa or the demands of the multi-lingual shoot. On the downside they seem to conflate porn and snuff films. There are also the usual biographies and Wanda the Wicked Warden trailer.
The VIP disc includes their usual restoration featurette and trailers gallery, along with a set of Ilsa specific interviews with Franco, Romay and producer Erwin C. Dietrich.
Serious Franco fans may thus want both DVDs anyway, while the more casual WIP fan will likely find one or other suffices.
Copyright © K H Brown 2002-2005
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